U.S. CONSIDERING TARGETING TALIBAN DRUG TRADE

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Pentagon officials have targeted illicit-drug
production facilities in Afghanistan to cut off the Taliban militia's
funding, sources told CNN Monday.

Striking at drug facilities is one option military planners are considering
as they devise ways military force could be used to pressure the Taliban, a
senior Pentagon official said.

"This is like a football coach having a lot of plays in his play book," the
official said. Drug facilities in Afghanistan are on the "list of potential
targets," the source said.

Officials are investigating a "full spectrum" of options in dealing with
the Taliban, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld confirmed Monday.

"We're intent on altering behavior," Rumsfeld said at a Pentagon briefing.
"We're intent on attempting to take the steps so that the American people
and our interests and friends and allies and deployed forces can go about
our business not in fear."

Illicit drug trade is the primary source of revenue for the Taliban,
bringing it an estimated $50 million a year, U.S. officials say. The Bush
administration is trying to squeeze the finances of terrorist groups in
general -- Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda in particular -- by freezing their
assets and cutting off their sources of revenue.

CIA analysts say Afghanistan in 1999 led the world in the illicit
production of opium, the substance from which heroin is derived.

This year, say U.S. officials, the Taliban banned the cultivation of
poppies, the source of opium. The ban apparently has been effective: Almost
no poppies are growing in Taliban-controlled regions of Afghanistan,
sources say.

Still, say analysts, evidence suggests the Taliban have huge stockpiles of
poppies, sufficient to keep cash flowing.

The ban apparently has not harmed Afghanistan's drug production, according
to the CIA, whose fact book lists Afghanistan as major source of hashish.
Increasing numbers of heroin-processing laboratories are setting up in the
country, and major Afghan political factions profit from their illicit
activities, the fact book says.